
Ed Sheeran spotted serving hotdogs in Chicago - and gets brutal telling off from staff
Ed Sheeran got a brutal grilling when he went to work on a Chicago hot dog truck that's known for their Karen's diner-inspired insults. The 32-year-old joined The Wieners Circle where he served up food to screaming fans who had been to his concert. “We’re gonna have Ed Sheeran here at the motherf****** Wiener’s Circle and I’m gonna teach that w***** how to make a f****** hot dog", one employee shouts. They then turn to the award-winning artist and insist: "Shut the f*** up and shove [a hotdog] up your a**". Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter
2023-07-31 18:51

Revealed: The cheapest pints of beer in Europe - with some for less than £1
With the cost of beer going up and up in the UK, holidaymakers are enjoying a pint for around a pound on holiday in Europe and the taste isn’t bad either. The British Beer & Pub Association recently found that on average a pint will set you back £4.07 in the UK - and £4.84 in London - which the Office of National Statistics has found is a yearly rise of nearly 12 per cent. However, finder.com puts the cost of the average pint in London at £5.50 and anyone who has been to the theatre recently will know the cost can be higher still. Perhaps surprisingly to some, the UK does not have the highest average price for a pint in Europe - with research by The Drinks Business last year giving that unwanted honour to Norway, where a pint will set you back £7.55. But while the cost of going to Europe will probably set you back more than you could save on the drinks - unless you are planning a long stay or a lot of beers - a cheaper price can ease the financial burden of going on holiday. Here are the places to go to in Europe for a cheap drink Although we one day hope they will again welcome tourists, Belarus and Ukraine are perhaps not the best holiday options in 2023 despite their cheap drink options. Vouchers.co.uk looked into Numbeo’s Cost of Living database to find the top ten cheapest pints in Europe in August last year and put the two countries at first and second respectively. Research found a pint will cost an average of 71p in Belarus and 90p in Ukraine. However, a better option might be Azerbaijan, another Eastern European nation where you can buy a pint for less than £1 with the average beer being just 91p. Moldova and Albania were not far behind at £1.05 and £1.07 respectively. Andrea Knowles, personal finance expert from Vouchers.co.uk said: “The price of everything seems to keep going up and up, and this includes your favourite tipple – and this seems to be the case whether you are visiting your local pub or looking for a refreshment whilst on holiday. “Whilst not all of these locations will be top of the list for holidaymakers this year, our analysis does well to show overall where holidaymakers can get the most bang for their buck when it comes to beer prices around the continent”. @simplyyykatie The cheapest European cities..?✈️ Who doesn't love a £1 pint?? #traveltiktok #europe #europetravel #cheaptravel ♬ Good Vibes (Instrumental) - Ellen Once Again Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria are good options too For more conventional holiday hotspots around Europe there is good beer to be had for a great price in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria - all countries that are on the end of plenty of flights from the UK on a daily basis. TikTok influencer Simply Katie has travelled Europe in search of the cheapest beer and found Hungarian capital Budapest can offer a pint for £1.21. The city is set to host the World Athletics Championships next month but is actually the most expensive in the country for the price of beer, according to vouchers.co.uk. The website found a drink will cost only £0.87 in Szeged if you are prepared to travel further into Hungary. “There are so many sights to see and you have to visit the thermal baths,” Katie said in the video. Simply Katie found Romanian capital Bucharest was a good option - with a pint going for just £1.48. She also found over in Poland that £2 is all it takes for a good beer in Krakow, while further digging can find that a beer can be bought for £1.49 in the historic city of Lublin. Another TikTok user Staceyistired commented: “No joke I went to Krakow two years ago and spent £60 in 3 days, we did all the museums.” "Who doesn’t love a £1 pint?" Simply Katie wrote with the accompanying video last month. Previous Euro travellers have also found Sofia in Bulgaria to be a good option with a Kozel beer on tap for the equivalent of around £2. Here is the full top ten according to the vouchers.co.uk list 1. Belarus (£0.71) 2. Ukraine (£0.90) 3. Azerbaijan (£0.91) 4. Moldova (£1.05) 5. Albania (£1.07) 6. North Macedonia (£1.24) 7. Kosovo [Disputed Territory] (£1.28) 8. Bosnia And Herzegovina (£1.29) 9. Bulgaria (£1.31) 10. Hungary (£1.31) Read More Heineken says customers bought less beer after price increases Cats on tap: Meet the New York brewery cats living their best lives Harry Potter superfans celebrate birthday of wizard with movies and ‘butterbeer’ LGBTQ+ community proud and visible at Women's World Cup Youth coach hopes Women's World Cup raises soccer's profile for Maori people in New Zealand New Zealand Women's World Cup team evacuated because of hotel fire in second security incident
2023-07-31 18:20

Japan Short of Paternity Leave Goals Despite Higher Numbers
Japan is far from reaching the paternity leave goals laid out by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, even though
2023-07-31 17:59

Heineken's profit hit by drop in beer sales in Asia
People in Asia aren't guzzling as much beer as they used to.
2023-07-31 17:57

Has America’s Air Travel Boom Peaked?
The air travel boom in the US appears to be fading. Purchases by US consumers directly from major
2023-07-31 17:56

Priya Ahluwalia: I’m so much more than just a ‘sustainable designer’
When fashion designer Priya Ahluwalia walked into the dress rehearsal of her autumn/winter 2023 London Fashion Week show in February, she couldn’t stop crying. Titled Symphony, the show was staged at a formerly baroque church hall, with models walking to jazz-infused renditions played by pianist Insxght and saxophonist Solaariss. “I was just so emotional,” the 30-year-old founder and creative director of Ahluwalia says. “It was like the culmination of a big deep dive coming together. That’s how I felt.” Ahluwalia rediscovered the music of her youth when designing the collection. “I don’t like to do things in an obvious way,” Ahluwalia admits. “As life changes, you listen to different things at different stages, so I thought about the visuals of what music sounds like when designing Symphony. “I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston was on the radio when I was born. So my mum finds that song really special and played it to me a lot. Sade’s Kiss Of Life was quite informative, and 50 Cent was also in there too. I remember getting one of his albums when I was 10 and thinking it was phenomenal. I also thought a lot about Prince, Queen, Freddie Mercury and even traditional Punjabi music.” Sound waves and musical notes inspired the lasered print on denim, jacquard patterns on mohair knitwear and track tops with accompanying shorts. Earthy shadows, reds and ochres were taken from the colours of album covers and illuminated cotton separates. Ahluwalia launched her eponymous fashion label in 2018 after graduating from the MA Menswear course at the University of Westminster, combining her dual Indian-Nigerian heritage and London roots, while also exploring the potential of vintage and surplus clothing. Around that time, Ahluwalia visited her father in Nigeria and says she noticed “paupers” wearing secondhand clothing from the UK. “I was really confused and started to ask questions about it,” she says – and it led to the publishing of her first book, Sweet Lassi, exploring the secondhand clothing industry in the Global South. “Finding ways for people to cherish their clothing forever has always been important to me,” Ahluwalia says. “Microsoft and I worked on a platform called Circulate in 2021, where we use AI to crowdsource and categorise people’s unwanted clothing. But now, I think consumers really see the value in learning about the things that happen behind the scenes of the clothes they are purchasing.” It’s why individual garments from the Symphony collection feature Digital ID technology — created and connected by the EON Product Cloud platform, powered by Microsoft Azure. Ahluwalia customers can scan with their mobile phones to discover their item’s unique story, including the design inspiration, production processes and origins of the sourced materials, helping consumers better understand how their clothes can be resold, reused and recycled. “This gives us the opportunity to really share exclusive content and information about a product. As a contemporary luxury brand selling items that are around £400, it’s important to provide our customers with more value and share the stories behind their clothes, whilst encouraging them to engage with sustainability.” But Ahluwalia doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a sustainable designer. “I’m so much more than making the right choices,” she says. “I’m a designer first and foremost, who is also a creative director, filmmaker of Joy and Beloved, who works sustainably to explore and redefine the inherent beauty of blackness [and brownness] through an authentic lens. “The vision is that one day someone would be sitting on Ahluwalia in their front room, watching it, wearing it, smelling it and eating it. A whole 360. I would love Ahluwalia to be an example of how ideas that are not so rooted in Eurocentric values are expandable and amazing on a global stage for people to interact with in a global sense, like we see with many traditional European [fashion] houses.” So what’s next for the fashion house? “We’re doing a show at London Fashion Week in September, but I can’t tell you anything about it. The only thing that I can tell you is that we’re holding the show at the British Library, which I’m really excited about.” Discover more about Ahluwalia’s partnership with Microsoft and EON here: Ahluwalia Symphony Unlocked | Microsoft Unlocked. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Experts reveal why you keep waking up at 4am, and how you can prevent it 10 last-minute gardening jobs before you go on holiday How often should you wash your bra?
2023-07-31 17:52

China hotpot chain Haidilao soars on surge in first-half profit
BEIJING Shares in Haidilao International Holding soared 16% on Monday after China's largest hotpot chain said it expected
2023-07-31 17:46

The dish that defines me: Frank Yeung’s prawn wontons
Defining Dishes is an IndyEats column that explores the significance of food at key moments in our lives. From recipes that have been passed down for generations, to flavours that hold a special place in our hearts, food shapes every part of our lives in ways we might not have ever imagined. There is a family scene I would love to engrave into my memory that involves my father, myself and my son, all making prawn wontons in one kitchen. Prawn wontons are so simple, like all good dishes, and they have a really special place in my heart. I have very fond memories of making them with my father, who is from Hong Kong, when I was growing up and it is my favourite dish. Now, it’s my five-year-old son’s favourite dish as well and he’s the same age I was when I first started making prawn wontons with my father, so it makes me excited to share the dish with him. When my son was younger, his Ye Ye (grandfather) would bring homemade wontons whenever he came over to my house in Peckham. But just recently, we were over at my parents’ home, and he made his first wonton. We were all very proud! It’s so nice because it’s a dish that has run right through my family, it was brought and championed here by my dad. He moved here in 1975 and has the classic first-generation immigrant story. He worked three jobs, moved around a lot, saved money and opened his first restaurant in 1985, 10 years after arriving in England. He finally retired in 2017, but he couldn’t get away from my restaurants. I opened my own establishment, Mr Bao in Peckham in 2016, and then Daddy Bao in my father’s honour. Even now when he comes around to visit, I make him talk more about restaurants. I think he enjoys it, though, and it reminds him of home. That’s really important now because ever since the 2019-2020 mass protests in Hong Kong, the country is a sad place at the moment if you’re from there. But it’s still an amazing place. My favourite part about making wontons from scratch was always the time spent with my dad. The chit chat between us, me kneeling on a stool and him standing at the counter. My hands were not as dextrous at that age and I certainly wasn’t practised, but he would be there to help show the right way to make the little parcels and finish them up for me. The bonding moment is what I cherish the most. Mum is English and she got involved too, she is actually amazing at it. Prawn wontons are also part of Christmas time for my family. Our big tradition is to have a massive steamboat on Boxing Day, which most people of Chinese descent will be familiar with. It usually involves a big, steaming pot of soup on a constant boil, and everyone sits around the table cooking fresh, raw ingredients in it and eating as they go. Prawn wontons are a big, big part of that meal for us, especially now that we have a couple of young kids running around at Christmas time, they really love it. The thing I remember most about making wontons with Dad is the filling. He has his own method for making the prawn mince that goes inside the parcels. He gets his prawns and chops them up, mixes them with any additional ingredients like garlic, and then he would make me pick up a handful of the mixture and throw it back down onto the chopping board, pick it up and throw it back down. It somehow aerates the mince and softens it, and makes it stickier so there aren’t big chunks of prawns floating around. I haven’t really adapted Dad’s recipe for myself, aside from the type of dipping sauce I like to have with them. We keep it very traditional. Oh, I suppose I do have a slight modification, actually. I like to mix gambas (white) prawns from the southwest coast of Spain with North Atlantic shrimps, which are tiny, tiny little crustaceans the size of your nail. They have got a really good flavour. I like to chop those up into the mince with the bigger prawns, add a bit of salt and white pepper, stir it through and then do the throwing method as my dad does. We usually make our own wonton skins. In a pinch, we’ll use shop-bought ones, but when we know we’ve got time we’ll make our own. At the moment, Dad makes handmade dumplings with my sister for her business so they have a dumpling skins machine – but we used to make them by hand, old-school style. He would roll them out because he could get the thickness of the skins right. It wasn’t possible when I was young as I had no idea and was clumsy! They have to be thin, but not so thin that they break or the wontons will open up in the water. It’s something I haven’t managed to master, but there’s still time. Some places don’t even use the regular wonton skins, and they are still amazing. One of my favourite restaurants ever was in Hong Kong – it has closed down now – but it was a hole-in-the-wall type of place that served two types of wontons: classic wontons or fish skin wontons. That was their entire menu. They used fish skins instead of pastry skins to wrap their wontons, and they were something like £1.20 for a bowl at the time. It was definitely the best meal I had with Mum, Dad and my sisters in Hong Kong. The wontons get boiled for two minutes. You can make a wonton soup with a base stock, using ginger, spring onions, salt, pork bones. Boil that down and skim off the top. Or, you can dip the wontons into a chili garlic sauce, which is how my dad likes – although another way I differ from Dad is that I like to add black vinegar to the sauce of soy sauce, garlic and chili, to add an extra layer of acid. You can also eat them as they are, they are completely delicious. My stomach is rumbling as I think about them. As my son gets older, it will be really nice to be able to make wontons altogether, the three generations of us at the kitchen island, chatting away. That’s what I’d like my son to take away from those sessions, the memory of doing it with his Ye Ye and me. I’d also like him to, in time, be able to link quality to food and what you’re putting in your body. I want him to understand that even though it’s so easy to go to the shop and buy something, everything starts out as a living thing. A prawn is an animal and a chive is a real plant grown in the soil. You don’t have to make it yourself and you should go to restaurants to support them, but when you do go, you’ll have a better appreciation for it. Frank Yeung is the chef-owner of Mr Bao and Daddy Bao in London. Read More The dish that defines me: Alex Outhwaite’s Vietnamese bun cha The dish that defines me: Eddie Huang’s Taiwanese beef noodle soup In Horto: Hearty, outdoorsy fare in a secret London Bridge garden Five dinner ideas from around the world to try this week Hi Barbie! Nine cocktails inspired by the doll’s most iconic outfits
2023-07-31 17:20

Mom's McDonald's dessert hack with fries divides TikTok
Two mothers have been hailed geniuses for their creative McDonald's dessert hack. Janelle and Kate frequently take to the platform with their divisive food recipes – but one, in particular, has caught the attention of almost 10 million people. The footage shows the pair in the car mashing six McDonald's ice cream cones in a plastic container while disclaiming that things can get messy. They proceed to top the ice cream with chocolate sauce and their own sprinkles for good measure, before using the dessert as a dip for their fries. "It's the sweet and salt mixture," one said, while another called their creation "perfect". The clip was soon inundated with thousands of comments from fellow TikTokers, with one writing: "At first I thought you were crazy but the further you went ... I thought that looks pretty good." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter "These are my kind of girls," another added, while another stunned user wrote: "WOAHHH why haven’t more people thought of this." Meanwhile, others weren't so convinced... "You lost me at the French fries," one wrote. @janelleandkate Moms share McDonalds secret! ?? #mcdonalds #mcdonaldshacks #momsoftiktok Attention soon turned to the fact that the McDonald's ice cream machine was actually working, a long-standing joke between fans of the fast food chain. The ice cream machine became an international phenomenon that one McFlurry lover launched McBroken in 2020, a site dedicated to tracking all the broken machines in the US. In a 2021 statement by Taylor Commercial Foodservice LLC, the company that makes the machines for McDonald’s, they explained the issues with broken machines. The company said that, although it tries to send out repairs specialists as quickly as it can, the waiting times became longer due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The statement said: "A lot of what’s been broadcasted can be attributed to the lack of knowledge about the equipment and how they operate in the restaurants, "The machines are built up with a lot of interconnecting parts that have to operate in a complex environment and manner." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-07-31 16:49

How often should you wash your bra?
Summer and smalls… it’s the yin and yang of our wash-day world. You’ve got a bit hot and sweaty at lunchtime, but you’ve only worn your favourite lacy bralette once… so it’s OK to put it back in the drawer, right? And then there’s the sports bra in your gym bag – it’s looking a little bit grubby but you can’t remember perspiring in your Pilates class. Here, experts shed some light on how you should be looking after your lingerie, along with some do’s and don’ts… How often should you wash your bra? “Realistically, if your bra hasn’t been worn for sports or on a particularly hot day, then we would advise washing every three to four wears,” says Rachael Burdis, product and marketing assistant at Pretty Polly. “If you leave it too long, then it will allow bacteria to build up and you could get dreaded boob spots; or even worse your bra could start to smell,” warns Burdis. Do you need to hand wash your bra or can you put it in the washing machine? We’ve all read the small print… some labels recommend hand washing but is this really necessary? Fabric plays a huge part in not only how often, but also how you wash your bras, says Burdis. “We all know bras are delicate garments and ideally, we should be hand-washing them each time in warm water – this keeps the bras’ shape and maintains the quality of the materials used. “However, I think we can all say we’re guilty of not doing that all the time – but we should try our best!” With fine fabrics like silk and fragile laces, she says they should always be hand-washed to avoid any additional wear and tear. If you’re pushed for time and your bra is going in the washing machine, Dinara Akhmerova, senior manager UK and Ireland for Simone Pérèle, advocates a detergent made specifically for delicates. “We recommend you don’t add softener as it can stay in the fibres for longer and reduce elasticity. Also, wash on a delicates setting at maximum 30C and no more than 800 RPM spin.” She also suggest using a bra wash bag to protect your underwired bras – and always dry lingerie flat to keep the shape. Does it matter if you wear the same bra for a week, even in summer? “We wouldn’t advise wearing a bra for a week; whether that be summer or winter, just to avoid any bacteria build-up,” says Burdis. “We also know length of time worn plays a huge part when deciding when to wash your bra.” If it’s been for a couple of hours a day, she says you could have a week’s worth of wear. But for a full day’s wear, she wouldn’t advise wearing your bra for a week. For matching sets, should you always wash knickers and bras together, so they don’t become different shades? “We tend to wash our knickers more often than bras – and good-quality lingerie shouldn’t fade so dramatically that you can see a marked difference, simply from not washing them together on a few occasions,” says Akhmerova. However, how well your lingerie maintains its colour depends on many factors, such as how careful you are when washing it, the type of fabric and colour, suggests Akhmerova. “Whether you wash your sets together or not, the number one rule is to always separate colours, especially your whites. Just don’t mix the colours! “Also, don’t use bleach on whites,” she warns. “It’s more likely to turn lingerie yellow than brighten it.” What about sports bras? For sports bras, Burdis sees this a little differently: “With a less intense low-impact workout, we advise every two wears. “But when it comes to a heavy gym session, long run or HIIT class, we advise after each wear to ensure you are always smelling fresh – and the bra isn’t accumulating bacteria.” Should you wash you underwear before wearing it, if it’s brand new? “Underwear should leave factories or packing houses clean as strict hygiene rules are in place,” says Akhmerova. “But it never hurts to give it a rinse out before the first wear.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live 5 late summer blooms to plant now This is why you keep waking up at 4am – and what you can do about it The two best exercises for lowering blood pressure, according to study
2023-07-31 15:15

Eskom Latest: Unplanned Outages Drop by 2,000 MW
Unplanned outages at state power utility Eskom Holdings Ltd.’s generating fleet fell to less than 16,000 megawatts in
2023-07-31 13:48

Heineken Lowers Earnings Forecast as Beer Consumption Drops
Heineken NV lowered its earnings guidance as consumers bought less beer after the brewer imposed major price increases,
2023-07-31 13:17